Apex Magazine Issue 28 by Catherynne M. Valente

Author:Catherynne M. Valente [Valente, Catherynne M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 2011-09-03T15:23:38+00:00

BP: "Frank" started simply enough. I wanted to try to write from the perspective of a man, to spend some time imagining what it would be like to have a male body, just to see if I could write about an experience I'll never have and have it seem plausible. I didn't expect to write more than the scene of Frank teaching the woman to drive--that was actually the thing that begged to be written, her sitting behind the wheel, the sun catching the fine hairs on her legs, Frank just watching her, not sure what to make of her.--but then I realized, as much as Frank wanted to be okay and normal, there was something not quite right about him. Why, for instance, was he speaking in the present tense? I had to keep writing to see what it was that was so strange about him, and to figure out what Frank was doing on that ranch. I was about halfway through my first draft when I realized he was a zombie, that the doc was like Wade Davis, who wrote The Serpent and the Rainbow, if Wade Davis had gone bad (It's really a wonder Wade Davis hasn't gone bad, if you think about it. The line between "How does that guy create a zombie?" and "How do I create a zombie?" has got to be very thin and the temptation to cross it pretty strong once you know how to do it.).

So, once I figured out that Frank was a zombie, it seemed obvious that he, even if he didn't know it, was the one in need of rescuing. That made it clear who was there to do the rescuing. And that's how the story came to be.

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